Project management is an approach used to manage work within the constraints of time, cost and performance. The complex relationships between various competing resources, outcomes and client expectations that affect the performance and delivery of specified tasks require the application of methodologies particularly suited to the management of unique undertakings. For example, the tasks might involve managing a plurality of technically complex projects, managing funding, and combining and managing the talents and time of hundreds of people. Project management has evolved to ensure that all such tasks are successfully completed in a most efficient and optimum manner.
Successfully managing a project not only depends on individuals' roles but also how successfully each member of the project team can perform and manage project management functions. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a conventional project management system 100 including various tools and applications. As illustrated, project management system 100 enables management through various disparate applications and environments, e.g., network or Internet based applications 105, client/server applications (e.g., Citrix or virtual network connection (VNC) applications) 110, stand alone applications 115, or query-based applications 120. In known project management schemes, details of the project management functions are generally stored in one or more databases or data structures 125. The project management information or data may be stored in various formats, such as, for example, word processing documents, spreadsheet documents, or another project management-specific format, such as Microsoft Project™, or relational data base management system etc. These applications may provide an interface that can be used by a project's members to perform different functions, for example, updating a task, deleting a task, adding a new task, assigning resource(s) to a task etc.
Unfortunately, existing project management applications and project management environments fail to provide a universal or ubiquitous method of identifying, retrieving, and acting on project management information.